Well, back in September I had the opportunity to get a few good painting sessions in, and that means.... progress! I got all the grasses blocked in. I used a variety of green, with more browns at the base. For the foreground grasses, one is more a yellow-green and the other a blue-green. In the background I used a grey-green to help push the distance.

So far, around 70 hours. I figure I'm aiming for 80-90.

Step 1- Grass Blocked in with highlights

Step 2- Scrumbling and Glazing
In the end, I felt the green was too green, and that it need to get toned down. I also wanted to try out glazing and scrumbling, so I thinned a green-brown mixture I'd made with Acrylic Glazing Medium and painted it over the green and then "scrubbed it out" with a dry rag. The effect is subtle, but there. It basically got ground into the deeper crevices of the wall's texture, and pushed that experience more. It looks as if there's a "heavier shadow" in the second pic, but there's not. Same exact lighting, just a darker brown is ground into the wall's texture.

Step 3- Additional mid-ground grey green
I decided to add one more layer of green, to overlap and push the back, well, farther back, and the foreground farther forward. I like the effect. It's busy and alive, snake-like, but all very vertical. It still reads as grass to me, busy and varied tonally, but, hopefully, it doesn't detract from what is the true center of the image- the red poppies- and instead leads the eye to them in a lively, winding sort of way.

edit- Addendum-
I took this closeup photo and made some notes to show the step by step process I went through in making the grass.

I pondered layering it a darker shade at the bottom of the wall, on a gradient upwards, but the truth is I think that ship has sailed. I should have done it at the beginning, and didn't. Now it'll be an incredible pain, and I'm not sure if it'd be worth it for the effort-- it already reads well enough, and I don't think I could replicate the feathering I got in there with the greens. In the end, I think it's a lesson to be learned for future experiences, and this will just have to represent the best I can do now.

Here's the current panorama that I've got as of mid-December. Getting there! I may make it to the finish line in 7-8 months! LOL!